"Google no longer supports SD cards" ??

[fotyc]

Sorry to ask what is probably an old question, but can someone give me a quick explanation of what is meant by the comment I put in the thread title? I am currently running 4.3 on my S4 and have not had trouble with my SD card. Does this just refer to how you can't install apps there anymore, or is there something more annoying going on that I haven't yet stumbled upon? I googled this question a couple of weeks ago and didn't find anything so I decided to ask... I expect to get the 4.4 update this week based on what others are saying, and want to be sure I'm prepared for anything I'll need to work around. I use my SD card for photo storage and downloaded documents. Thanks!

 

[Ry]

Read up: Why Nexus devices have no SD card | Android Central

 

[fotyc]

Thanks, that's very interesting about why Google devices don't have SD card slots. But it doesn't tell me what, if any, behaviors I might expect on my phone when I get the 4.4 update...Google isn't going to create the operating system so it will completely refuse to read the slots that manufacturers continue to put into their Android phones, is it?

 

[Sicily1918]

Thanks, that's very interesting about why Google devices don't have SD card slots. But it doesn't tell me what, if any, behaviors I might expect on my phone when I get the 4.4 update...Google isn't going to create the operating system so it will completely refuse to read the slots that manufacturers continue to put into their Android phones, is it?

No, it shouldn't -- all Google did is reduce the number of partitions on the Android back-end and move them around a bit to allow for a "ROM" space (i.e., the Android Linux OS) as well as a single app/data space (i.e., user-writeable) at /storage/ -- all a manufacturer needs is to mount the SD card somewhere in there and voila, you can put stuff in it.

I think the only difference I remember seeing on my SII (T989) was a slightly different name/mount location for the card once I went to ICS/JB (and it was much as above once I went to CM10/AOSP).

The funny thing is that it wouldn't take much (practically nothing) to format SD cards as ext4, thereby preserving file permissions and such. Being a post-boot mount device, it'd be easy to fix any errors with fsck in the boot process, and most of Google's issues with those cards would go away... except that the SD cards wouldn't be very portable anymore (without extra drivers, neither Win nor Mac can read extents (ext4)), so Google would have to come out with Win/Mac software that was able to read the card (say your phone died and you wanted to get at that data), but what do I know...

 

[fotyc]

Thanks for the explanation.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[petalmasher]

No, it shouldn't -- all Google did is reduce the number of partitions on the Android back-end and move them around a bit to allow for a "ROM" space (i.e., the Android Linux OS) as well as a single app/data space (i.e., user-writeable) at /storage/ -- all a manufacturer needs is to mount the SD card somewhere in there and voila, you can put stuff in it.

I think the only difference I remember seeing on my SII (T989) was a slightly different name/mount location for the card once I went to ICS/JB (and it was much as above once I went to CM10/AOSP).

The funny thing is that it wouldn't take much (practically nothing) to format SD cards as ext4, thereby preserving file permissions and such. Being a post-boot mount device, it'd be easy to fix any errors with fsck in the boot process, and most of Google's issues with those cards would go away... except that the SD cards wouldn't be very portable anymore (without extra drivers, neither Win nor Mac can read extents (ext4)), so Google would have to come out with Win/Mac software that was able to read the card (say your phone died and you wanted to get at that data), but what do I know...

Interesting... I just installed CM 11 on my Galaxy tab 2 7.0 and since then haven't been able to save to my SD card. noticed that the the drive was partitioned differently. I wonder if this is why I Can't save to my SD card.

 

[graysonk95]

"Google no longer supports SD cards"

What you said is pretty much completely true. If you use your SD card for anything DO NOT take the 4.4 update. It completely trashes almost all SD card functionality.
If I could get 4.3 back I would, 4.4 just isn't worth it considering all of the things I can't do anymore.

Just to name a few functions that are now broken:
-You can't read/write to the SD card using any apps besides "My Files" "Camera" and "Gallery" (you can't download to the SD card from your browser)
-You can't backup/restore your phone with Kies
-You cannot sync your phone with Kies
-You can't sync music or other content to your SD card or internal storage using 3rd party apps like Doubletwist or iSyncr (unless you take your card out and plug it into your computer)
-I use Dumpster, and if I delete something from my SD card, Dumpster can't catch it.

It's pretty much pointless to have an SD card now. I might as well have shelled out the extra $$$ for the 64GB S4 rather than going the economical route and getting a 16GB phone and SD card of any size.

 

[fotyc]

This is new with 4.4? Besides having my camera save photos on the SD card, I also store PDFs on it that I want to be able to read with RepliGo and/or Adobe Reader. My daughter stores MP3s on hers and plays them in a music player app. I will still use my card, because as long as I make sure to move things there with FX manager, I will be able to keep them off phone memory and take them with me from phone to phone. But it sounds like it will be a little more inconvenient.